Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 999: The One Before 1000

Episode Date: December 30, 2016

In their penultimate show as co-hosts, Ben and Sam answer listener emails about baseball amnesia, iconic photos, Mike Trout hitting lefty, designing ballparks, and more before reminiscing about how they almost didn’t do email episodes.

Hello and welcome to episode 999 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of the ringer joined by sam miller of espn hello hey how are you all right all right yeah thanks to everyone for all the nice words i don't know why i'm saying this most of the words were about you but a lot of nice words about both of us and a lot of nice words about Jeff. Probably, probably you, you finished in third place tonight. I think that is how I would want it to be because I'm the only part that's not changing.

So thanks to everyone. And we are going to do one more email show here in which we will answer every unanswered email question we have ever received because this is our last chance. No, that's not true, but we will, we'll get to a bunch. Anything else you want to do? Yeah, I wanted to mention the most, well, Meg Rowley, I was bothering her about Deion Sanders the last episode, and she, bless her heart, went into a Deion Sanders rabbit hole

and came out with what I believe is maybe the greatest sentence ever written in an email. And so Meg writes, further research has revealed that Deion Sanders released two rap albums. The first, Primetime, peaked at 70 on the hip hop charts in 1994. Here comes the best sentence ever written you ready yeah all right remind me ben what was the name of the album prime time oh where did it peak 70 what year 94 all right good just wanted to make sure you were paying attention all right here comes the sentence here's the sentence the second was all remixes of his original album and and wasn't released until 2005.

Did it chart? It did not chart. That is her next sentence. It did not chart. He retired from the game in 2006. Well, at least he put it out there, unlike Matt Kemp. Yeah. Who you did find out was actually in the studio.

You were able to confirm that or a listener was. Yeah. Thank you for reminding me. That is a very important update. I have to tell you, I was, I have been stressed about that because I was, I mean, I saw this not, I mean, not three weeks ago. I saw it in an old tweet of mine and I knew that this was a legit, but then while we were recording, I could not find it and i i wondered whether i had had slandered the man in fact mike carlucci found a bunch of uh tweets that

were uh not by matt kemp who has changed his twitter account since then and therefore uh has has has left that part of his life behind But there were people tweeting about it to him, and it was saved on a Dodger message board in 2009. And so it is real. He wrote in something like 2009, in the studio right now, working on my album. Well, I mean, one of us has to ask him about this. Next time the Braves play the Mets, I wonder if I of us has to ask him about this next time the Braves play the Mets.

I wonder if I'm brave enough to ask him. I will say that I don't, that does not say rap album. I apologize. I did add rap album. And so I don't know what kind of album it is. He is, through digging into his Twitter account, he is a big fan of gospel. And so it's conceivable that he's a that it was a gospel album i believe he did somebody else by the way tweeted uh that he was in the studio with matt kemp working on

a few tracks and that gentleman is an r&b singer uh and so i can't vouch for the genre i think i i got i i went too far on that okay anything? Nope Alright, so let's get to some questions Do you have a play index by the way? I do Alright, good, so question from Andrew Patrick Patreon supporter Philosophical question for the last week Let's say baseball god will allow you to live out

Any career you'd like You can plot your exact career and accolades as you like The downside is that upon finishing that career, you will be struck with a bout of amnesia and have no recollection of it. It will still have happened, and you'll have the videos and press to prove it, but you yourself cannot recall any personal details of it,

how it felt, and you never will. Do you take the deal? Is it worth anything to live an exciting life if you have no memory of it afterwards? So I actually was talking to Dan Brooks about a month ago about something that I was writing on about happiness and the sort of fleetingness of happiness in the human brain. And he told me about this incredible, incredible study. And he told me about this incredible, incredible study. There was actually an experiment done on people who have no memory, who have no short-term memory and can't remember anything past five minutes or even less than five minutes.

And they had them experience events that I think were sad events and then looked at their brain beyond the period of time, like 20 minutes. So beyond the period of time where they could possibly have any memory of it. And there was still, the brain was still affected by the experience. The brain was still sad, even though it could not remember being sad. And so I think I would take it for two reasons and I wouldn't take it for one reason. The reason I would take it is because I'm leaning on Dan Brooks's knowledge of the literature and believing that even if I don't remember any of this, that my brain is constantly imprinting on itself emotions that, like, you know, as we know, as Kaiser, I don't, do you have Kaiser? Do you know what Kaiser is? The healthcare? Yeah. No, I don't, but you have Kaiser? Do you know what Kaiser is? The healthcare? Yeah.

No, I don't, but yes, I do. Kaiser has commercials that talk about how, like that are like CJ Craig from the West Wing does the voiceovers and they're all about how like, uh, you know, getting a hug makes it less likely that you'll get the flu. Like happiness makes your body stronger and that, um, like playing the flute will keep you from getting, um um cancer or something like it's a it's a very optimistic ad campaign but uh i i if if any part of that is is true then then simply by living the happy experience your your body would still carry some of that forward with

you and you would benefit from it even if you were not conscious of it even if you were not and really it doesn't matter if you're it doesn't necessarily matter if you're conscious of it, even if you were not. And really, it doesn't matter if you're, it doesn't necessarily matter if you're conscious of it. If your brain knows it, if you were experiencing the happiness, even without consciously recognizing it. The other thing, though, is that it would be, presumably, if the point of, if we are anything better than the most self-interested animals, if we have any instinct toward helping the team and it, we don't simply help the team because this, the, the, it redounds on us or because we get paid or whatever. Like if we actually have even like 1% of us truly wants the team to do well, whether we get credit for it or not, uh, then the, uh, ability to help the team should be something that we should

volunteer for, even if we know that we are not going to remember it. If I'm willing to join a team and try to help it win consciously, I should be willing to join a team and help it win, even if it is unconscious, that helping the team should be the thing that I am playing for. So I believe that I would do that. Now, here's the reason that I would not do it. It is, I would be taking somebody's spot. Somebody else would have a great life that they would remember. I would have a great life that I would not remember and only get like these residual effects from. And so maybe it's selfish to take somebody's dream away from them so that you can zombie your way through it. Yeah, I was thinking about this question. I was trying to gauge how much of my happiness in my actual life is tied to remembering things

that I've done. Like, I don't spend a lot of time just sitting around savoring events in my life and thinking, I enjoyed that. I'm really enjoying the memory of having done that thing. I enjoyed that. I'm really enjoying the memory of having done that thing. But if I'm losing my sense of self in this scenario, like I'm not only forgetting events, but I essentially forget who I am and what my personality is. And, you know, like there's a certain amount where I would just feel unmoored from anything. And I think that would be unpleasant. I'm going to, I'm, I'm sort of writing over Andrew's question a little bit and assuming that the bout of amnesia is independent of what you choose, that you're going to have

the bout of amnesia anyway. And it's like saying, would you rather be a ball player or would you rather be in a Turkish prison? And does it matter if you don't remember it? And so, yes, I think that I certainly, I don't think I would take this career, this, this career choice if it meant essentially, right, losing my soul, losing myself, losing any connection I have to my surroundings. I would not do that. So maybe I should have read the question the way you did, in which case, no, the answer is no.

Okay. But if you're going to get amnesia anyway, then the question is, do you want to have been a really good baseball player or do you just want to have been a podcast host that people like or whatever? Yeah, I think you're probably right to read the question the way Andrew read it. Now that I read a little bit closer his punctuation and so on, I do think that he is asking it the way that you are reading it. And so then let me ask you this, Ben. Same question, but instead of baseball God will allow you to live out any career you like, it is baseball God will allow you to save five people who are dying. Okay. But now you're going to get amnesia at the end of it. And

would you do it then? So this is a pure test of my selflessness? Yes. Nah, I probably don't do it. Ben, I have a question for you. Yeah. Let's say Major League Baseball players made exactly what you made, what you make. Uh-huh. Would you, and you could choose whether to be the writer that you are now, the writer and the podcaster, or to be a comparably skilled ballplayer on a Major League Baseball team. But the pay is the same. Uh-huh. What would you choose?

I'm not even sure I would choose baseball player if the pay weren't the same. Wait a minute. If the pay were, you wouldn't leave for $4 million a year? I mean, I never wanted to be a baseball player, which, you know, was partially, I guess, because I knew I couldn't be and I didn't delude myself into thinking I could be one. But I never wanted that life. I don't know. I like a more solitary, I don't know. Like I, I like a more solitary, I don't know. I can't, I guess I can't say that I was going to say, I don't like, you know, performing in front of people constantly,

but that's kind of what this podcast is. No one's forcing me to, to do a podcast that people listen to. But yeah, I mean, I like, I never wanted to like be on a team and go to practice on the weekends. That's exactly what I want to do. That's all I want. I never wanted that. So I mean, obviously there is a certain threshold of wealth where it becomes extremely tempting depending on what your circumstances are. I'm not suggesting it would be torture to be a Major League Baseball player, but I don't know. That kind of athletic acclaim is not something that I ever saw it or really coveted or aspired to. So if the pay were the same, I definitely wouldn't switch.

Interesting. I wonder how normal that answer is. I have another question for you because one person at least is at home going, well, you could be a ball player until you're 36 and then retire, and then you could be a writer and a baseball podcaster, right? True. And I could write my baseball memoir. But here's my question for you. Do you think you're peaking? Do you think that your career is also peaking at around the same time that a baseball player's career is? Do you feel like we're as good as we're going to get? Yeah, I think I can compare to like five years ago and say that I'm better than I was then.

That was before we started this podcast and I was terrible at podcasting when we started that. And now I'm hopefully not terrible. So I've gotten better at that. I think I've gotten better at writing. I don't know whether I am still getting better though. If I am, I can't perceive the improvement. So I think I find it very comforting that I am in a field where your skills don't atrophy at the same rate that they do in a purely physical endeavor, because I think about baseball players my age and they're already past their prime and I feel very reassured that I am not, or at least there's no reason to think I am. But I don't know that there's any reason to think I'll get better.

Maybe I will just from being around become more prominent in some way, but that doesn't mean that I will be better. So I think you could probably, I don't know, like, I guess it, there's like a kind of creativity that seems to peak very early. And maybe I never had that kind of creativity, just, you know, like incredible artists who produce amazing songs and albums and, and movies or whatever at, you know, 22 or something, and you look at them and you hate yourself because you're older than they are and haven't done a fraction of the stuff they've done. But I feel like, I don't know, the kind of talent that I have, such as it is, is fairly durable or has a fairly graceful aging curve. So I feel good about that. But I don't think I am necessarily on the incline skills wise.

Yeah. And you're older than I am. So you're, you're over the hill. Yeah. I mean, I, I had a reason to look back at some of what I wrote in 2013 and 2014. And, uh, I was, I was impressed. And yet more people are reading you now. Yeah, I know. I feel like I probably have always felt this way. I think that everything that I do seems a lot better to me two years later than it does in the moment. I never like it.

Yeah, and as long as I don't lose my mind, I will have more knowledge to draw on, like as long as my core skills don't erode. Less to say, though. Less new to say. Less new to say. That is true. Yeah.

You're getting out at a good time in this podcast. You've already said everything you have to say. Twice. Yeah. All right. Question from Justin, who is referring back to our conversation about Clayton Kershaw's son, Charlie Kershaw, and what we would sign him for today. He says, a little late to the Charlie Kershaw contract party,

but since you were doing an email show, I have what might be a play index idea. It occurs to me that when I was coming of age, the most exciting AL player, Ken Griffey Jr., the most exciting NL player, Bonds, the Ironman, Ripken, and my favorite player, Moises Alou, were all sons of major leaguers. None of these players are the sons of pitchers. In fact, at this moment, the only son of a pitcher I can think of is Adam LaRoche, who ended up being a batter, as did his brother. I just looked up how many father-son pitcher combos there have been, and nobody really jumped out like some of the bats we can all name. If you are throwing contracts at newborn babies just based on who their fathers are is the safe Money on a future Mike Trapp Jr.

Over little Charlie Kershaw Yeah I think that he makes a good Point and I would be Interested in digging into that but It's odd too because it if you Just described baseball to me And then asked me to guess Whose kid would be a better

Bet a pitcher or a hitter I would have guessed a pitcher. Yeah, so would I. It seems like a more singular skill to have an arm as opposed to just, you know, being strong and fast and things that a lot of people are. Yeah, exactly. And so I'm somewhat surprised by that. Although maybe, you know, maybe the weeding out of pitcher health starts even earlier

than, you know, the majors or the minors. Maybe, like, I mean, I had a sore arm pretty much from the time I was like nine years old on. Maybe there's just a lot of kids whose arms hurt that we don't hear about. Maybe not. Maybe that was a pointless direction to go with no real exit from it. I already, I replied to Justin, you saw what I said, but one of the things that interested me about this email is that the names that he says, Ripken, Bonds, Griffey, Alou, to some extent. I mean, Griffey and Bonds were the two best players of the 90s. And Ripken was maybe the best player of the 80s and 90s, like over in that generation that bridges those decades. And when I was a kid, we just yesterday talked about how when I was a kid, there were, there were, it seemed like a lot of two sport stars, and that just doesn't happen anymore.

But all the stars when I was a kid, it seemed like we're either two sport stars and that just doesn't happen anymore. But all the stars when I was a kid, it seemed like we're either two sport stars or they had like baseball family blood. Like, so you have those, those are the sons. You also had Robbie Alomar, who was the son of a big leaguer and also the brother of a big leaguer. And then you had Jose Canseco, who was the brother of a big leaguer and Tony Gwynn, who was the brother of a big leaguer, and Tony Gwynn, who was the brother of a big leaguer, and then later became the father of a big leaguer, as did Pete Rose, as did Tim Raines. by major league, by former professional baseball players is extremely high. But the percentage of stars that come from big league bloodlines seems to have really petered out. The 90s was like a real fluke, it seems like, for family greatness.

Like, I'm just looking at the active leaders for war right now. And A-Rod still shows up here, obviously not the son of a big leaguer. Pujols, Beltre, Beltran, Cabrera, Utley, Cano. Cano's dad played double or triple A, so he wasn't a big leaguer. Ichiro, Pappy, Kinsler, Teixeira, Pedroia, Maurer, David Wright, Mike Trout, whose dad I think topped out at high A or double A, Votto, Longoria. I haven't named a single player yet whose dad played ball, or I don't think I've named one whose brother made the majors. Maybe they'll have kids who do, but

Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Braun, Matt Holliday, Granderson, Adrian Gonzalez, Tulo, Zobrist, Carl Crawford, Hanley, McCutcheon, Jose Reyes, Russell Martin, Jose Bautista. I'm down to number 31, Vic Martinez, Ryan Zimmerman, Buster Posey, Yadier Molina. Molina, finally, we got a guy with legit big league brother. So number 34 to get a family. Of course, the Seegers are out there and they'll climb this list, but it's odd. That's not odd. It's just like, I guess what I'm saying is that maybe we were blessed to grow up in an era where our baseball stars had flukishly interesting things about them. They were really interesting superstars. It wasn't just that baseball was a bigger deal or anything like that. I mean, it was, and there were probably more attention for baseball players, and they were more household names.

But also, we got good stars. Like they had good stories about him. Uh, and there's nothing wrong with, with our baseball stars now, but kind of a little, a little boring. Yeah. There's nothing better than a superstar getting to play with his dad and like that in the same lineup and hit homers in the same game and play in the same outfield. That's just the coolest. Yeah. All right. Question from our pal Tim Livingston. Let's say Mike Trout did everything he normally does,

but some unforeseen circumstance forces him to bat solely from the left side. Injury, need for left-handed hitting on the team, a dare from a teammate. How long would it take for him just remembered he just remembered that he's how long would it take for him to be league average offensively considering he still has the base running that makes him the all-around standout he is from the non-numerical side would he still make an all-star team and would he get a top 10 mvp vote that's a good question i like this question so i think didn't we i think we actually got asked this question twice recently too so first off give

me his first 50 plate appearances what does he do huh all right well i have no knowledge that mike trout has ever even attempted this like sometimes you'll hear about a guy who does it in batting practice or like you know he plays'll hear about a guy who does it in batting practice or like, you know, he plays around with it and jokes about doing it in a game or something. I've never heard anything that suggests that Mike Trout has even tried this. So I know nothing about that other than how good he is from his natural side. So I'd say first 50 play appearances and he just like starts doing it in a game tomorrow. He doesn't have an offseason to work on it or anything.

Correct. I would say he hits 50 with no power. So that's two and a half hits. Yeah. And all singles. Yeah, he'll beat out a couple squibbers. He'll beat out a couple squibbers. So if there's a case for him doing better than that,

it is that the overwhelmingly most important skill for a hitter is cognition, is just the ability to see that pitch and recognize that pitch quickly. Of course, bat speed is important, and having a good swing that can get through the zone and all that is important, and he would not have any of that that It would all be unfamiliar to him But he would have the cognition But I don't know how much of the cognition transfers Because he's standing in a different place

He's a different view of the ball I mean there's got to be some transfer there But it's not at the same level I would hypothesize From where I'm sitting On my side of the country that it would quickly transfer over and that that would be not immediate, but within like, geez, I would say most of that would carry over almost immediately. I mean, he'd still have to get used to the pitches and the different, you know, spins and the different directions. But as far as being able to pick it up and to see it at the speed that big leaguers see it, to not be shocked at how fast it's coming, to not be, to just not be unaware or uncertain of how to do a thing. Like, I think he'd be able to track the ball well.

And tracking the ball, I think, is the key to hitting, is what separates them from everybody else, more than anything else. I might be totally wrong about that, but that's my position. So if that's true, then he might never get all the way. It just maybe would never be his stronger side. No, I don't think he could get all the way it just maybe would never be his stronger side but no i don't think he could get all the way unless he has some natural aptitude for it that we don't know about yeah i don't think you can rewire yourself as an adult so completely that he would continue to be the best player ever yeah if he started now of course of course batting left-handed. He doesn't have to get all the way.

He's going to, it's a big advantage batting left-handed. So he might get 85% of the way, and that might be the same numbers, maybe. So he would still have the defense. He would still have the base running. I am going to say that assuming no degradation of skills, if he remains a 10-win player for the next eight years as a right-handed batter, I will say that by year two, he is a fringe all-star. And by year three and four and five and six and seven and eight, he is an all-star. Not necessarily making it every year, but he is an all-star player. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? That sounds just like a stupid thing to say. Yeah, I don't think I'd go that far.

Obviously, yeah, he has those secondary skills. I don't know if those are the skills that necessarily make you an all-star usually, but he has the defense and he could keep playing center field well and keep running, although he won't get on bases often. I don't think he ever gets to all-star offense level. I mean, if he could, then wouldn't more people be switch hitters? be much better than the typical player at hitting from his non-natural side just because he's better at everything he's mike trout unless we're assuming he has some special aptitude for this switch then we're saying that anyone could make this switch and well i'm giving when i say all star i'm saying four win player he's a 10 win player so he's losing six wins he's losing a he's losing a kyle seager from himself so it's not

a painless change and and this is with him doing it exclusively so a switch hitter of course wouldn't do it exclusively so he wouldn't get the experience as fast and i don't i'm not saying that he has i'm not assuming he has special aptitude for it beyond being Mike Trout and having special aptitude for everything. Well, he definitely has the mindset, the makeup, because every time he is bad at something or even just bad by his standards, he quickly becomes good at it. So when he was having a hard time with high fastballs or whatever it was, He spent an off season learning how to hit high fastballs, and then he was the best high fastball hitter. So I don't think he could become the best left-handed hitter, but I think he is wired in some way that just makes him all baseball all the time

and not satisfied with not being good at something. So I could see him just obsessing about this until he gets to some kind of competent level. So maybe since he's starting at such a high level, he does have a long way to go and still be productive. But I don't know. I don't know. I'm just trying to imagine myself doing it.

And that's a bad frame of reference because I'm not Mike Trapp, but you wouldn't be, even if they offered it to you, you would rather just be you. I want no part of that. But yeah, I mean, I just feel so helpless when I try to hit from my opposite side that I like, I could make contact when I would play wiffle ball or something and hit from the opposite side. I could hit, but it was almost like a one-handed swing that I was just kind of trying to put the bat on the ball and not driving it at all.

So I don't know. I guess the lesson is never underestimate Mike Trout, but I'd say he never gets to be an all-star, but he's still rosterable. Still rosterable. Does he start on one of 30 teams? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay. After a year or so. Yeah. I think it takes him a while. All right. You're basically saying that he's Rajai Davis. Yeah, right.

Okay. He doesn't have to be. I mean, like, how good does he have to be offensively? If he can muster, like, a 290 on base or something, he can play. Yeah. Play index? Sure. There was something Jeff Sullivan said when he was on last week with Grant about the Orioles.

He said something about the Orioles. What were we talking about? Oh, he was talking about the Orioles. That was one of his things was the Orioles. Yeah. He drafted Orioles offseason stories and how unexciting they are. Yeah. drafted Orioles offseason stories and how unexciting they are.

Yeah. He talked about the Orioles in their uninspiring offseasons, but he also tucked in there the interesting tidbit. The Orioles are the American League's winningest team over the past five, I think he said, seasons. And he said, at least I think they are. Maybe they're second. And I think that's exactly how we would all say that fun fact. Even if we had just looked it up, we would say it and then we'd be like, at least I think they are, maybe they're second. And I think that's exactly how we would all say that fun fact. Even if we had just looked it up, we would say it and then we'd be like, at least I think they are. Maybe they're second because it doesn't sound right. But it is. The Orioles at

five, I think 549 have been, have the best winning percentage in the American League over the past five years. You want to guess who's number two? Five years? Is it the Cardinals? No, that's, I'm talking only American League. Card two five years is it the cardinals no that's i'm talking only american league cardinals are the cardinals are the winningest team in baseball over the past five years but al only al only yankees yeah it's the yankees at something like 530 which is i mean like nobody thinks of the yankees as being even a particularly good team over the past five years and And 530 is not. 530 is an average of 85.5 wins a year.

So that is like extreme, I guess you'd call it, parity. And the Cardinals are better. The Cardinals have a winning percentage of 569 over the past five years. But even that doesn't seem that high for a best team in baseball over a half decade. So I went on Playindex to see if that's normal or not. And if we have exceptional parity or not. So I looked at the best teams winning percentage and the worst teams winning percentage over each five year period going back to 1978, which has the fortunate coincidence of basically hitting every expansion just right. So it goes 2002 to 2006, and then 98 to 2002, which is the expansion that brought in the Rays. 93 to 97, which is the expansion that brought in the Diamondbacks.

the Rays. 93-97, which is the expansion that brought in the Diamondbacks. 88-92, 83-87, 78-82, which is the, I guess, the second year after the Blue Jays expansion. So it does pretty well. But anyway, and then I looked at the standard deviation of winning percentages for all 30 teams in that. And the presumption being that if there really is an exceptional amount of parity, that the standard deviations will be smaller for these past five years. So standard deviation is just a little lower than normal at about 42 points of winning percentage. And from 83 to 87, it was 39 points. From 93 to 97, it was 44 points. So it's the second lowest, I guess. It's the second lowest five-year period in the eight I looked at. And

in a lot of years, it's much higher. 98 to 2002, it was 59 points of winning percentage. 2002 to 2006, it's 59 points of winning percentage. This is not the interesting part. There really isn't an interesting part in this one, but that's not even trying to be the interesting part. So then I looked at the best team for every five-year period going back to 1970. And so in this, I did not look at five-year chunks. I looked at every single five-year period. So five years ending in 2016, ending in 2015, ending in 2014, etc. And 569 is slightly better than the five years ending in 2014, 563. So that is comparably an unimpressive dynasty. But then to find anything like that, you have to go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, to 1994 when we get to 563 again. And then 1993 is 564. And then it goes back up to the 600s, 600s, 600s. And then in 86, basically in the early 80s, there was a lot of what you would

call parody and then never again. So there have been three basically blips where there wasn't what you would call a great team. For every other five-year period since then, you've had at least one team that averaged more than 95 wins per season over five years, which is a lot. Like averaging 95 wins per season, averaging almost 96 wins per season is a lot. And that's basically my low threshold for considering a year to have a great team. You have the years leading up to 2006, for instance. You have a team that averaged 99.5 wins, the Yankees, which is a lot. averaged 99.5 wins, the Yankees, which is a lot. And you have in 1997, the Braves were coming off a five-year run in which they averaged not 148. Where did I get the wrong number here?

99.95 wins. So they averaged 100 every five years. So anyway, this is not a unique observation. I think people, whenever there's not a great team, people notice it and people have noticed it, I think, recently. But that is just to say that it is true. It is validated. And I'm not, I can sort of think of individual cases why it's true.

I mean, certainly the Bud Seelig's final 15 years kind of raised the floor, I think, for teams. You don't see teams that are, you rarely see teams that are that bad for a decade anymore. You see teams that go really bad for a year or two or three, but not for a decade. And so the, not having that, like the kind of seller of baseball teams,

maybe makes it harder to rack up huge wind totals in individual, like for every team you can, like the Cubs are currently a great team, and yet you know why they haven't been a great team for five years. They weren't even trying for three of them. And the Red Sox have at times been a great team, and then they're in last place the next year, and you're not totally sure why. And a lot of teams, you look at their five years,

and you go, yeah, I remember those five years. They make sense. In the aggregate, I'm not sure I have a great explanation for why. I don't think there's anything necessarily in baseball that prohibits this from happening. I mean, as recently as 2012, for instance, there was a great team over five years. But it's been a decade since we had a team average 600 winning percentage over five years. I do think that some of the incentives make it so that teams don't have a lot of ambition to be 600 winning percentage teams, as we've talked about. I think that it is harder to keep your team together to some degree than it was a long time ago. And there's a little reasons here and there, but I don't know. Do you have a grand overarching explanation for why this is

and whether you think that this will hold, whether we've seen the last of our great dynasty five-year 500 win teams? I don't think so. If you had asked me that on yesterday's show about the next 50 years of baseball, whether we will see that again, I would say, yes, we will see that again. But maybe it means something. It's like Joe Morgan used to say in his Joe chats on Fire Joe Morgan, there are no great teams anymore.

He was maybe just a little bit ahead of his time. He was definitely ahead of his time because like in 2007, there were great teams. There were great teams in 2006, in 2005. Those are some of the peak great team years. Yeah. Well, he was just that good an analyst that he saw it coming. So I don't know. Some of the reasons you mentioned, there's been a payroll compression and maybe that's part of it. And I mean, the Yankees over the last five years, they've been the second best team in

the AL, but they haven't been that good. And part of that is that they're still spending a lot of money, but they're not even spending the most money anymore. And they're not spending so much more relative to other teams than they did at some points in the past. So that's probably part of it. some points in the past. So that's probably part of it. And maybe there's less separation among front offices, at least than there was 15 years ago. There's probably just as much separation as there was 30 years ago when all the front offices were just sort of former players. But I would say

those things and maybe just players getting better and overall talent getting better i don't know that's probably not enough to make a difference over five or ten years but yeah all right let me let me uh real quick do a very quick play index if i can the this is just a fun, more than anything. The Big Red Machine from 72 to 76, five-year period, averaged 101.4 wins. In the last 14 seasons, only three teams have won 101 games in a single season in all of Major League Baseball. And none of them won more than 103. It's been a long time since we saw a team win 105 games or more. Yeah. Well, that's why I guess Joe said that his calibration was off because he was on really

great teams. Yeah. Oh, yeah. True. That's a good point. That's a great... I bet that is why. Yeah.

I bet that's why he thought that. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm on his side. Well, it's too late. All right. Question from Darren, who says, I am revamping my office and I want to include three semi-large iconic photos that represent baseball history and how great the game is.

What three photos would you use to represent baseball and how great a game it is? How many iconic baseball photos do you use to represent baseball and how great a game it is? How many iconic baseball photos do you think there are? How many qualify? Oh, probably dozens, I think. I think, I don't know. Like the first one that came to mind is, well, I don't know. A lot actually just came to mind when I was thinking of some, but like, you know, like Jackie Robinson slide. Sliding into home. Yeah. That would be a good one just because you get Jackie Robinson in it and you also get Yogi Berra and you get a play at the plate. So it's very, very baseball and iconic in multiple ways.

So and, you know, just having a debatable play that people are still debating. That's just that's a good one. So that might be one of my three i don't like even like yogi leaping into don larson's arms yes another iconic photo that even you say you say even that one you've named two well i mean it's it's one player and he's in oh yeah at least two iconic photos so yeah he's an icon but they're a bunch i had i think i sort of stalled out at at maybe a couple dozen that came to me like i i would like for instance so many things that we experience that are iconic iconic moments it's not necessarily a photo that we remember like

i remember armando galarraga's face extremely well i don't know if there's a particular image of it like there's not like a photo that like the photographer who took it when he dies, they'll write an obit about him or anything like that. But I remember it really well. And like, I would consider that I would consider that one of my three. Here's what I got. Here's what I got. I don't have a great answer to this. I hope you have some that you're interested in but i'm going oh i'm going the catch the willie mays catch um i'm going pedro throwing don zimmer okay i think that the the i think baseball is mostly a story about aging like mostly why we watch it is that it is it is

us measuring aging without acknowledging it uh we watch players get old we watch ourselves get older than players and there is something there is like the a career is a unit of measurement that we are comfortable with and so pedro and don zimmer young and old i think uh also there's so many different clashes there there There's the Yankees, there's the Red Sox, there's American Dominican, there's, you know, young and old. There's great and there's like great versus like baseball, like bureaucrat or like, you know, like it's like Pedro is the greatest of all time and Don Zimmer is like a short order cook of baseball.

And so there's that and there's just a lot of things going on in that picture. So I'm going with that. then i i don't know like i i was like personally for me i think that um griffey's rookie card upper deck rookie card would mean a lot to me but i don't think it necessarily would to darren but it would to me and i think galarraga would mean a lot i i mean it it's recency bias but jose batista that's just such a right that is just such a good moment good image well if it's about aging and careers then don't you almost have to have garrig at his farewell address and babe ruth leaning on the bat at his farewell i mean that's both of those i would say are iconic and hang on, I've got to see the Babe Ruth one. Babe Ruth leaning on bat.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a great one. But Babe Ruth, see, I want real baseball, not fake baseball. Babe Ruth, look at this guy, greatest of all time. I just don't believe it. He was dying at the time. You threw a Babe Ruth? He threw a two-hit shutout the next day.

Yeah, I'm trying to think what else. Maybe like Ozzie Smith doing a flip. That one's a good one. I don't know if that's one specific flip that I always see. I think it is. I think it is, yeah. Or like Ty Cobb sliding into the base. That's a good one, but that's not real baseball either. I like A-Rod reclining on the base with his hand on his hip. It's pretty iconic. I don't know if that might be one of my three. I don't know if that might be one of my three.

Yeah, I don't know. Like there are a lot of moments that they're iconic, but I guess I don't really think of them as photos so much as you were just saying. Like if you had Luis Gonzalez hitting the blooper off Mariano Rivera, you could capture the moment when he is hitting that blooper, but it's not like a famous photo on its own. I wouldn't say it's a, it's a famous clip, but the, the moment itself probably doesn't count. Yeah.

And then you've also got, I mean, a lot of the ones that are iconic that I would not dispute the, the iconicness of them, but like, I don't care to have them in my, you know, in my room. Uh, like I don't have an emotional connection to ty cobb friends i have zero emotional connection to ty cobb yeah i don't know i don't know if i have any like iconic moments as a fan that have that sort of meaning to me i don't think i do bud selig holding his hand up to his ear and going, huh? It's a good one.

Yeah, I don't know. But I think I'm revising my estimate of how many there are upward. I think there are probably 100 iconic baseball photos. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we should mention Carlton Fisk and then just move on. Yeah. Is that a photo, though?

Yes. It is both. It is both. I think it is both. I think it is both a photo and a video. We've probably seen the video more, but you've definitely seen the photo. Yeah, I guess so. Well, I just Googled Carlton Fisk home run photo, and three of the first five results are split frame photos where it has like three of him, which is cheating, I think. So unless those are your three, maybe those are your three.

Maybe so. All right. Well, that's a good question. I, yeah, I don't know. Like if it's on your desk though, then it has to be personally significant to you. I don't know that I have three that are personally significant enough to me to put on a desk. I would, if I could get Will Clark flipping off, flipping the bird from second base. Yeah, that's the one thing that the listeners haven't come through with.

No, Matt Trueblood got us kind of close because he found, let's see if I can find it. He found a newspaper article from the time talking about how Will was angry in a game because something, like something that the Astros had done to him that day. They had done something. And it all, everything lines up. The timing works. The park is right. The double's there.

Everything is just right for this to be the game. We don't have confirmation, but it does add up. Yep, that would be good if you could document it, if only because it would reassure you that it happened like the Matt Kemp recording an album. Matt Kemp recording an album matt kemp recording an album might be one of my three images no i'd go i'm going with uh i'm going with maze pedro zimmer and uh and batista the maze catch has personal significance to you well for one thing i'm a giants fan uh-huh so yes for an for another thing it is the most iconic photograph in baseball

history and baseball itself has emotional significance to me so in the fact that it is baseball's sort of like greatest moment or greatest image uh yes but also there's just there's something about having one of your three choices. B, A, a man alone in this big expanse. Like, I like how the picture has a lot of grass. He is in a big field and there are a lot of people looking down at him. And that's what, that's what baseball is. That's what we're doing. We put these guys on this big pasture and say, run around, we're looking.

I like that his back is to you. I mean, I think it's gutsy to have one of your three be a dude's back. All right. Well, I will take the Jackie Robertson slide and I guess I'll take the Babe Ruth leading on a bat and I'll take that photo that was pinned on Grant's Twitter for a while where it looked like the guy was riding the other guy during the double play transfer. Yeah. There are personal ones that I would choose. If they were actually my office, I would choose totally different ones that we haven't mentioned that are too specific to me, but I'm trying to help Darren. All right. One more maybe. Let's see. Question from John.

I don't know if we ever answered this. We've definitely gotten this multiple times. But he says, suppose you were given free reign to design a baseball stadium for your team. Do you have an overall stadium philosophy? Grant. Would you make it pitching friendly? This is so good. I'm so glad. I'm so glad this is the last one.

I'm going to make Grant Brisby so mad Should I do it? Should I make Grant so mad? Sure, definitely do it Would you make it pitching friendly, hitting friendly, or neutral? Would the outfield wall be symmetrical? Or would you have goofy angles that might add to home field advantage As your players would be more familiar with bounces than visiting outfielders Lots of foul territory or not much

Bullpens in play in foul territory or behind the outfield walls what special considerations or amenities if any would you give to the fans one time grant asked me this question and he asked a bunch of people this question for an article that he was going to be writing and uh he might have asked you ben and so i answered him and then for the next few days, I waited for this article to come out. That was three years ago. Very careful close watchers of our Twitter accounts might notice that I still, every once in a while, ask him where it is. I'm not going to ruin the whole article. He can have his idea, but I am going to tell you exactly what I wrote, which is I'd like to see a strip of seats about four seats wide that goes from the left center and right center walls directly toward the plate about 50 feet.

In this arrangement, the left and center fielders might not be able to see each other, which isn't a feature so much as something I'm telling you so you can visualize it. This would essentially give some fans a seat on the field, right in the middle of... Didn't we talk about that once? Yeah, I think so. Right in the middle of everything. Furthermore, nobody has ever criticized a ballpark for having funny angles. Furthermore, if you aim it just right,

you could hit a 315-foot home run to the power alley. So that's mine. I also have always... Somebody asked us recently about designing their, he got to have a say or power of designing his college baseball teams park. And I think I replied that I would like to see baseball without fences again. this originally and i talked about my strip of seats going onto the field i think we talked about having not no fences because you need to have bleachers but having the bleachers be on pillars basically like a pier and the ball could roll forever underneath the stands yeah that'd be cool so you could still you could still hit it into the stands but you could also hit it over the stands or under the stands and it could roll forever yeah this is

tough there's a fine line i think between giving your park character and going too far where it just looks like you're trying to give your park character because a lot of the great ballpark quirks date from the early days of ballparks when there wasn't really an accepted way to build a ballpark or you just sort of squeeze a ballpark in in the city or in a hill and you just had to make it fit somehow so you'd have weird dimensions or whatever like a lot of that stuff dates back to the early days and so you have the green monster or you know whatever and a lot of those things are kind of unique to old parks or famous parks of antiquity and And when you try to add that stuff now, it's easy to go too far, I think, and go for that throwback look that became very popular when Camden Yards came out and was very nice. a warehouse is cool. It looks good. But I don't know that Tal's Hill ever really worked. I think Tal's Hill was kind of like a good idea, but it just seemed like it was too self-consciously

trying to be a weird thing in a ballpark that is kind of a throwback to an earlier time. So I don't know. Like I wouldn't want to have a sort of 80s, 70s style cookie cutter stadium, but I also wouldn't want to go so far with the goofiness that it just looks like I'm trying to force it sort of. So I don't know what I would do. find something in the middle where it's like if you give someone a nickname or something and you're so proud of the nickname you just gave them and you try to act like you know and like no one else calls them that thing but you act like it's a thing and everyone uses that nickname like it's kind of like that if a like with a ballpark if you just build some weird feature in and you try to pass it off as if it's just this just this thing that everyone should think is cool,

but it's brand new and it was just like developed in some conference room with a bunch of people trying to figure out how to make a ballpark marketable or tie back to the traditions of baseball or something. So it's hard, I think, to find the right balance there. So I would want to have some goofiness. I would think that there is some extra home field advantage to having weird walls or strange dimensions or something. I haven't really seen a study of that, but you'd think it might be true. Although, I don't know, a lot of home field advantage comes from other factors that wouldn't be affected by that. But I'd have some of that. I think I'd want to just make it small,

which like all the things that I think I would want to do are probably things that make no financial sense, like making it kind of cozy and small and making the upper deck seats close to the field. That's the thing I miss most about the old Yankee Stadium is that I could buy a cheap seat in the upper deck and sit behind whole plate in the top tier, and it was perfect. It was such a great location, my favorite seats in the park, and now you can't really do that in the new Yankee Stadium and lots of new parks because everything is recessed because it makes it easier to have more luxury boxes, and so that's what everyone's doing so i guess all the things i would do would be a bad idea and would probably hamstring my team competitively so

don't let me design your ballpark yeah well i i suggested stands that come onto the field in the middle of the left center field power alley. So if it's between me and Ben, let Ben design your ballpark. Alright, well people are probably wishing that I will just keep taking more questions because then you won't be able to leave, but that won't actually work because you'll hang up on me

pretty soon. So I will stop there and thanks for all the questions that we have gotten and fielded over the years i i think we'll keep doing that jeff and i but it's been great and you were initially skeptical about the email show was a concept i think you were right yeah you didn't think we would get good questions or you thought it would just be sort of filler but as it turned out i think the email shows have kind of been the essence

of effectively well well you want to you want to bear with me and we can see if we can find an email of us emailing about email show sure let's see here it was what winter 2012 yeah i think so all right let's see here probably be a oh yeah i think i found it yeah okay all right i'm just gonna read that i haven't even read it so i'm just gonna read it i was i sound so brave except you're gonna edit this oh no i'm reading it now hang on all right so here i'm gonna read it without reading ahead all right okay oh this is when i was trying to talk you into doing fewer episodes i was okay so me possible compromise we do every day but four days a week we only do one topic because this was still when we were doing two topics we each had to

bring five topics a week can you imagine oh so so only one of us has to prepare and we really do make an effort to limit it to 12 or 13 minutes i'm so optimistic that we're going to get back down to my dream length. Oh, my gosh. It was, by this point, we were already, like, easily in the 30s, I think, often. All right. So we really do make an effort. The fifth day, we double up topics. Ben, okay.

Or, alternatively, we could just make one of the shows a reader email show. That way, we would encourage participation, community, and also not have to come up with topics. Me. Reader emails are just so terrible. Worst part of every podcast. I think using one email for a topic in a show is good if it's a good topic. But man. Ben.

Ben. I always enjoyed them in Up and In. Me. Hmm. I had two people tell me this week they skipped those on Up and In. Ben, huh. Yeah, doing a reader. Oh, I have more to say later. There's more?

Doing a reader email show feels like a waste of resources. I don't know what that means. I think you meant that like we could get whole episodes out of each email. I think I did mean that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's because, and we could have if we had gone to 12 minutes a show.

In fact, I specifically say, I'd happily, I say right after that, I'd happily talk about David Phelps for 12 minutes if that's the show. David Phelps was relevant at the time all right ben so then couldn't we just have a day that we designate as a reader email show and we pick out the two best questions people sent us that week and talk about them and expand the scope of what we talk about in response to the question as necessary sure but everything i say is, but then it feels like we're in danger of going back to five full shows a week because you think we've solved the problem. Yeah. Well, so we did it.

We did it. I like the email. The email shows are my favorite part of this show. Email shows are great. I think without a doubt, email shows were by far my favorite part of the show. Email shows are great. I, I think without a doubt, email shows were by far my favorite part of the show. I don't even know what would be close to it. I mean, there's only one other thing in this show,

which is non-email shows. I like those less. I liked, yeah, I liked email shows a lot. So thanks everybody. The email shows led to the cold calls. Well,

they led to the book. Yeah. Well, did they? Yeah, I guess they did. They did. Yeah. They led to the cold calls. Well, they led to the book. Yeah. Well, did they? Yeah, I guess they did. They did. Yeah. They led to Theo and Tim because we were answering a question about Indie Ball, right? Yeah, that's right.

All right. There you go. They also led to Tim emailing. Tim emailed. Full circle. All right. So we'll end it there. You can support the podcast on Patreon at patreon.com slash effectively wild.

And today's five listeners who have already pledged their support, Lane Maddox, Brennan Jordan, Tom Elmer, Nicholas Pelliccaro, and Mark Griffiths. Thank you. And by the way, special thanks to the people who have signed up for Patreon since the announcement in our last episode. I appreciate the vote of confidence, Jimmy Babowski, Dustin Toon, Fayaz Munir, and Chris Laskowski. You can join our Facebook group, whose ranks have swelled in the last day or so, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. I appreciate all the tributes you've sent in via email and Facebook message and Patreon message. But if you haven't left a review on the iTunes page, just paste in Thank you. respectus.com as far as i know sam will continue to receive those emails and you can message us

through patreon and we'll be back soon with the big episode 1000 extravaganza you've all been waiting for so we'll talk to you then I'm falling like an anchor through the sky. Oh, I feel like I should be getting prepared for something. But I could not tell you right now exactly why.